The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
WITH THE FLAG TO PRETORIA.
S. Begg.]
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN VISITING HER WOUNDED SOLDIERS.The Queen has throughout the war shown the greatest solicitude for thewounded. On March 22, 1900, Her Majesty paid a visit to the HerbertHospital at Woolwich, and personally handed gifts of flowers to overa hundred wounded men, in each case accompanying the gift with a fewwords of sympathy, which often had reference to the services of theparticular man whom she addressed. The patients included survivors fromColenso, Spion Kop, &c. The Irish soldiers, whose gallantry had beenspecially noteworthy, were favoured with special notice. The Queen wasaccompanied by the Princess Christian and the Princess Victoria ofSchleswig-Holstein.
With the Flag
to Pretoria
A History of the Boer War of 1899-1900
By H. W. WILSON
Author of "Ironclads in Action," &c. &c.
ILLUSTRATED MAINLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND AUTHENTIC SKETCHESTAKEN IN SOUTH AFRICA
Vol. I.
LONDON
Published by HARMSWORTH BROTHERS, Limited
1900
PREFACE.
The chief point of interest in the South African war, apart fromits political aspect, will always be that it was the first greatstruggle fought out under the new conditions which smokeless powderhas introduced. No invention has made a greater change in the artof war than this; the revolution is so profound that it can only becompared with that brought about by the general adoption of firearmsfour hundred years or more ago. So late as the Spanish-American warof 1898 a large part of the United States army was equipped with theSpringfield rifle, firing smoke-producing powder, so that in thatwar, in spite of the fact that the Spanish Army was supplied with theMauser, the full consequences of the revolution could not be observedand ascertained. The British Army, when it took the field in October,1899, was face to face with factors the precise effect of which couldonly be conjectured. Magazine, or, to give them their older name,"repeating," rifles had been employed as far back as the American CivilWar of 1861-5, though they were in every way vastly inferior to ourmodern Mausers and Lee-Metfords. But smokeless powder was a distinctlynovel element.
It is easy to ascribe our defeats in the early part of the war, as somehave ascribed them, to the "stupidity" of the British officers andgenerals. At bottom, however, it would seem that much of this unsuccessw